Essay On Listen To Me America

Being an American to me means more than just loving watching baseball and eating apple pie. It's about following the American Dream. The dream of always striving to achieve something better. I once heard a quote from Edward L. Hudgins that reads “An American is anyone who loves life enough to want the best that it has to offer. Americans look to more than the next meal; they look to the future, the long term, a better tomorrow.” To me this quote means that Americans aren't here to settle, they are here to achieve their dream, the American dream.

The United States of America is a melting pot of various cultures, who wish to obtain one goal, the “American Dream”. Being an American means one is guaranteed by law to have natural rights, which are life, liberty, and property. In the government’s eyes, one must become a legalized citizen in the United States, to be considered as “American”, but there happens to be a deeper reasoning to be truly recognized as an American. Americans are seen equally, which allow most individuals to be successful in what they want to pursue. Many Americans show patriotism towards The United States of America by celebrating national holidays, and going to patriotic events.

During local, state, or federal election there is a limited amount of time and information that a voter has to help him/her decide for which candidate he or she wants to vote. Before the ruling in Citizens United v FEC, private donations from voters were needed to provide candidates with financial means to create commercials, billboards, etc. In turn, this gave the voters a voice in who is to lead their government. Corporations were limited in the amount they could provide to their candidate of choice. After the ruling, corporations can now match every private donation and contribute an unlimited amount on top of that in order to support their candidate. This creates a problem because a corporation can potentially suffocate voters with campaign ads without the other candidates' ads being heard. Therefore creating an uneven debate and platform for Democracy to work.

Greed negatively affects the world, including America. In America, greed is responsible for large chief executive officer salaries, outsourcing, and corruption inside police departments and government. Greed is defined a selfish and excessive desire for more of something than is needed, like money or expensive items ( "Greed Definition”). Greed has caused outrageous corporate scandals that fill our newspapers and has produced rash tax cuts that have given money to the rich and in effect taken it away from the poor (Greeley). This is shown most importantly, by the insane ratio of a CEO salary to a worker's salary, companies outsourcing to other countries like China because it is cheaper, and lastly the money police and politicians taken because

What does being an American mean to me? Being American to me, means that you have the right to freedom of speech because some brave American soldiers risked or are now still risking their lives, maybe still in the future we will have more people stepping their game up, then they will be one of the brave Soldiers fighting for our country. Being American means to me? Being able to talk about whatever we wanna talk about, knowing that whatever we say, we know that it is a safe place, and that we won’t get shot and prosecuted if reasonable. Being American is probably one of the best things that can happen to you as a person, there are some people out there trying to make this world a living hell for us.

The Federal Court Case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Committee is a case with a controversial outcome. The Supreme Court came to the decision, through a 5-4 vote, that for-profit corporations have the same rights to finance political campaigns as citizens. The Supreme Court held in Citizens United that it was unconstitutional to ban free speech through the limiting of independent advertisements by corporations, associations, or unions (CU vs. FEC). The Supreme Court Decision allows corporations and unions to use their financial resources to either promote or persuade against any political candidate on an advertisement. The ruling also allows corporations and unions to donate to political campaigns and does away with any limits on how much a corporate donor can contribute to a campaign (ibid). While the businesses may not give money straight to campaigns, they have the choice to persuade the population of voters as a whole through the use of advertisements, just as Political Action Committees do. The corporate funding of political advertisements is made possible by the First Amendment because it guarantees the right to free speech, and political spending is one form of that protected speech.

Being an American “For the land of the free”, do these words sound familiar? Of course they do they are the lyrics from the United States of America’s national anthem. Now earth has countries that stretch from coast to coast. But few of the countries have the freedom that the United States of America. Being born American is an honor to many of the citizens, because this country has plenty of things to be proud of.

It is unsensible to believe that even the upper crest of the US financially can keep up with a corporation. Therefore receiving donations from corporations is the candidate's main goal, while ignoring the many small donors that truly represent America’s views. While there is no solid proof of corporations influencing candidates decisions thee have been sketchy moment in which corporations money influencing candidates decisions have been suspected. In 2000 when Bush was running for president an energy company based in Houston, Enron donated a substantial amount of money to Bush. They donated 2.5 million making them the highest donating energy company and the 36th highest corporate donator. After Bush was elected he passed 6 bills extremely beneficial for Enron that multiplied their revenue by nearly three times. In all Corporations donating limitless to candidates forces a candidate to pass bills beneficial for their donors and not the majority of people. This needs to stop or the purity of America’s political system goes down the

The majority wrote that the Freedom of the Press Clause in the 1st Amendment protects associations of individuals, not just individual speakers; therefore, corporations gain 1st amendment rights as an association of individuals (Roberts, 2009). This means that corporations have effectively the same 1st amendment rights guaranteed to individuals. In Buckley v. Valeo, it’s established that money is detrimental to disseminating speech. For that reason, limiting a corporation’s ability to spend money is deemed unconstitutional because it limits their ability to speak on political issues., The majority opinion also wrote that because the BCRA doesn’t distinguish between corporations and media,

Once elected, politicians are inundated with constant reminders from lobbyists, of whose money helped elect them. According to the Office of Public Records, in 2009 there were almost 14,000 lobbyists who were supported by $3.5 billion of corporate money (geekacademy.com, 2010). With the combination of lobbyists and political donations, corporations are able to pressure politicians to help frame issues that are more favorable to them. And at the same time, keeping critical issues from being brought before Congress which those corporations are against. Political donations and corporate lobbying have proved to be an excellent

The United States is a capitalist society; money is powerful. The wealthy and those in power are able to influence tax policy. There are a few tax policies that have more of a benefit to the wealthy than to the poor. A few of them include the mortgage interest deduction, the yacht tax deduction, rental property, business meal deduction, capital gains tax rate, estate tax, social security, and savings for retirement plans.

In 2011, two sociologists named Erik Olin Wright and Joel Rogers identified five core American values: freedom, prosperity, efficiency, fairness, and democracy (Wright and Rogers). America’s numerous ideals inevitably cause these values to come into conflict each other. Such conflict characterizes the debate over the implications of modern campaign finance laws in America. The Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizen’s United v. FEC in 2010 undid former restrictions placed on how money can be spent on federal political campaigns. Prior restrictions like the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 and its amendments in 1974, placed limitations on political donations by Political Action Committees (PACs), political parties, and even individuals. Originally these restrictions were put in place to deter corruption that could undermine the democracy inherent in US values and elections. The Supreme Court’s ruling in 2010 revolutionized the scene by declaring that independent expenditures are protected by the first amendment to the US Constitution. They further asserted that for all intents and purposes corporations are legally viewed synonymous with people in terms of political spending. The Supreme Court’s ruling emphasized equality and freedom, but at what cost? Critics, like Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, suggest at the cost of democracy, and ultimately corporate interests diminishing freedom in the long run. As a result of this case, more money is now

Capitalism is good. In reading the articles, it seems scholars are either pro or anti-capitalism. The corporate American model of capitalism is built upon free enterprise and encourages competition. It’s also called the Liberal/Social Democratic model. Our economy, supposedly, encourages and rewards competition and equality. Yet the lack of competition and equality in our economy are issues scholars take aim at the most. George (2013) wrote in his editorial, “In the United States, income inequality has escalated since the 1970s while millions of workers and their families are suffering the devastation of long-term unemployment or work that is insecure and unstable….That is, the tenets of American corporate capitalism (ACC) might be in contradiction to compassionate organizing. ACC is an ideology that emphasizes, among other things, the pursuit of self-interest, competition, market exchange, consumerism, and using a profit/loss criterion to make decisions in organizations (George, J. 2013).” I’m pro-capitalism and I understand the views of those who are anti-capitalism.

In 2010, a very controversial law was passed that has changed the way our elections are ran. Our Supreme Court led by Justice Roberts immediately jumped on passing this law called Citizens United. Citizens United allows big corporations to spend as much money as they want in elections. This means that the corporations can put all of their money towards one candidate or they can put forth all of their money towards advertising for elections. This is good because these corporations can encourage people to become interested enough in elections to actively participate. With more people actively participating there are more votes for each individuals most favorable candidate creating the best outcome for the President of the United States or for a new member in the House or Senate. Since Citizens Untied gives so much power to corporations, these corporations heavily influence who to vote for through their advertising and money. From all of this unconditional amount of advertising and money influences in our elections, corporations have the ability to make their vote overpower the people’s votes.

Why must money from booming corporations empower who controls the campaign to become president? When running for president, it is clear who will receive the most money for campaigning, conservatives and anyone else who is in favor of big corporations alike. When the government turns to large companies for help, the government only begins to rely on their profits. As for unions, the money they contribute is usually toward liberals and democrats, but of course this is nothing compared to the potential billions corporations can contribute. For the Citizens United v. FEC case, the case should be overturned for at least a period of time of a few elections to allow real life results.